#they found her through me even in this odd indirect way HAH

[macbethheadband]

I just saw that video of joanna newsom on my dash and. well I'd heard her name before but never heard her music and I was entranced... just put that video on repeat and then went down the rabbithole of random youtube videos of live performances....I am in love. so thank you for making that happen for me. and if u have any recommendations of like her quintessential stuff that i Must hear....i'm all ears 👀

OKAY FIRST OF ALL thank you so much for sending me this you have no idea how happy it made me. i read it out to my whole family who all rolled their eyes as a group it was great. I know EXACTLY how you feel right now bc story time story time i used to really not like jnew. seriously i didnt vibe with her at all. but then one day something just clicked into place and now i cant live without her. good intentions paving company came on shuffle and she sang ‘baayybee’ and i went oh i get it now and also im in love with you. and the ensuing first dive into the rest of her music was so much fun. 

i grew to love her in waves because i basically went album by album. and i started with have one on me which i think a lot of people consider to be her most accessible album because the songs arent crazy long and deal with pretty grounded subject matter and her voice was less comparable to lisa simpson which i know freaks ppl out when they havent Seen the Light.

When it comes to quintessential though, I think a commonly held perspective is that Ys is THE jnew album and for good reason. having a song by song listen through of Ys rly is an experience.

Okay when thinking about individual songs though i picked a couple from each of her albums and i really limited myself bc i wanted to pick everything but heres what really jumps out to me as important on each album.

Milk-eyed mender: sprout and the bean, the book of right-on, ‘en gallop’ peach plum pear

Ys: emily, only skin

Have one on me: have one on me, good intentions paving company, in california, go long, does not suffice

Divers: sapokanikan, waltz of the 101st lightborne, divers, time as a symptom.

But if i were to selfishly give you my personal favourites (other than the ones already listed up there) id nudge you towards these as well:

Milk-eyed mender: sadie, clam crab cockle cowrie

Ys street band EP: colleen (VERY special song i have a tattoo of it lol)

Ys: monkey & bear, sawdust & diamonds

Have one on me: you and me bess, soft as chalk, esme, ribbon bows

Divers: anecdotes, goose eggs

AND OF COURSE theres some other fun stuff like these playlists ive made that i plug to everybody all the time. Since you joined us after seeing That One Live Version of Baby Birch you should check out this playlist where im slowly collecting the canon of the best live baby birch performances and THIS PLAYLIST that is just my all time favourite live jnew performances in basically chronological order from 2004 to just a few months ago. sometimes her harp skills r crazy sometimes her voice hits just right sometimes the song just whips total ass with a full band behind it. I also rec this live album very very much.

ANYWAY what i really truly believe is that shes an artist that keeps giving. every other week a different song takes top spot in my life and i carry it around with me like a locket around my neck until something else comes along and captures my new mood. Right now i cant put monkey and bear down its the only thing i wanna listen to. PLEASE update me on what youre listening to and enjoying!! And thank u again for sending this u have no idea how much it brightened my week ur a star oxoxoxox

[sudsybear]

Nightmare

I started writing because of a nightmare. Over the months since Ross’ death, I dreamt about him several times. This particular nighttime fantasy was more graphic than others.

 I sat alone in a windowless antechamber of a doctor’s office, idly paging through a magazine while waiting. Finally a nurse appeared to the doorway, announced it was my turn and invited me to follow her to the exam room. She led me down the stark corridor, plain white walls lacking decorative posters or artwork, lights recessed into the ceiling. She opened a door on the left, and motioned for me to enter. She turned and left me alone to take in the scene.

 The room was bright, painted cheery yellow, and small rectangular windows were framed near the ceiling letting in indirect daylight. From behind a flimsy white curtain hanging from the ceiling, fully illuminated flexible lights surrounded a shiny stainless steel exam table. Blood covered the table, pooled at the edges where it wasn’t deep enough to spill over. The walls were spattered with more blood that left long red-brown streaks as it dripped down; more was still moist on the floor. Otherwise unfazed by the scene in front me I thought, “Where can I sit? I can’t believe they let me into a room that wasn’t cleaned. That’s just poor office procedure, there’s no excuse for that. Isn’t anybody going to come in and clean this mess up?” Adult-sized bloody shoe prints led out the door and down the hallway away from the waiting room. My disgust turned to curiosity and finally fear set in. Now wary, I followed the footprints down the hallway, and found Ross’ dead body. I screamed myself awake and sat up in bed.

 Momentarily confused, I lay back down, pulled the pillow under my head, and turned to my still sleeping husband, reached for his comforting warmth. Spooned behind him while he slept, I considered the images in my head. There under the covers, I trembled with fear. What was that I just dreamed? Why would I dream such a terrible image? What could it possibly mean? How do I shake it off? I haven’t yet. I may never completely get rid of it.

 After that nightmare, not quite a year after we buried him, in December 2001, I contacted his brother and sister-in-law and asked some questions. This led to an exchange, which led to a comment. Amy’s comment was innocent in intent, but incendiary in consequence. She wrote, “I was struck by how much insight you gained about the family just from hanging around Ross all those years ago.”

Wait a minute Amy. I didn’t “just hang around Ross.” Didn’t you know how close Ross and I were? Didn’t he tell you? Didn’t Scott? Ross and I were in love once upon a time – madly in love. Desperate, can’t-live-without-each-other love. Didn’t you know that? Did anyone know? Or am I just remembering it wrong?

 So, while my children played together in the family room, and my husband watched the Superbowl on television, I searched the bowels of my basement and re-discovered a treasure-trove of correspondence. I pawed through dusty boxes, pulling out all kinds of memories, and finally found the letters. There they are! I found them. Hah! I knew they were there. Now you’ll see. Now you’ll know what happened.

 Along with these letters, this detritus from my youth, there were more letters from family and friends. Over the months, I attacked more boxes in the basement; it was well past time to clean out. I knocked down cobwebs, threw away old CPR cards and ten year old phone bills. I sorted through clothes to be given to charity. Then among the boxes, mixed in with my husband’s own collection of stuff, I found a half-dozen audiotapes Ross recorded for me long ago. I pulled them out, and wondered at them. Would they still work? I savored them, contemplating. No, what we shared wasn’t a dream. It did happen.

 Finally, in a quiet moment in a parking lot after I dropped my children off at preschool, I sat in the driver’s seat of the minivan and gingerly put a tape in the cassette deck. Sound burst forth, and as easily as any time machine any science fiction writer could imagine, I was transported back to 1985. While the music blared through the tinny speakers of the minivan’s factory installed sound system in the 21st century, I was on the bed in Ross’ room sprawled across his bedsheets staring at the posters on the walls, while he dubbed album after album. These were the melodies that I took to humming at odd moments over the years, unbidden tunes that struck me while I sat in traffic woolgathering at a stoplight. I had long forgotten their origin, they were so integral to my being. “So THAT’S where they came from,” I marveled.

 Years ago I put these letters and paraphernalia in boxes and stored them away. These letters from friends and family were written during a turbulent period of my life. Amidst painful circumstances I made regrettable decisions, closed off these memories and never looked back. Now, it was time to unpack. All of it; the good stuff and the bad. I needed to make time to remember, look back and try to heal.

 While reading these letters from the past and listening again to the music that was so much a part of me, I started writing. I can’t call it our story, Ross isn’t here to share his version of events. We left each other years ago and I’ll never know what details he did or didn’t remember. So this is my story; inspired from the music of our past, culled from the hints of Ross’ letters, and mined from the memories of family and friends.

 But memories are flawed, especially seventeen and eighteen-year-old memories. Where and when I could, I contacted friends to substantiate and corroborate memories of events. That in itself was an interesting exercise. First I needed to find people with whom I once shared close friendship. Sitting in our office at home, in front of the keyboard and monitor, I pulled up the Google search engine and typed in names. I used reverse look-up sites, I asked for e-mail addresses from current friends. When I finally found who I was looking for, I sent introductory e-mails and asked for memories. Did you keep any of my letters? Care to share? Did you ever meet Ross? Do you remember anything about the two of us?

 Anna was willing – but she was surprised to learn of our friendship. She had gone on her own adventures, and never knew how Ross and I became close. While our children played together, we giggled remembering gatherings with friends, and grew quiet when we recalled friends who passed too early. Greg was also willing, and laughed reading Ross’ letters, remembering events they shared together. During our evening together at David’s house he offered a comforting comment, “He really loved you. I had no idea until he asked, ‘I’ve got to let her go, man. But it’s going to be hard. I need help.”

 But not everyone is able or willing to pause to consider where they’ve been, and instead shared stories of ritual burnings, uncaring housemates, irritated landlords, and other tragedies that led to the loss of personal history. Gone are letters I wrote to high school and college friends. Gone are photographs from graduations and memorable parties. Gone are so many trinkets that help us remember special times of our adolescence and young adulthood.

 In desperation I turned to institutional memories – yearbooks, academic files, medical files – anything to trigger the merest whisper of a memory. Even in that pursuit, I learned about the vagaries of institutional record keeping. I was looking for information from 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1986, the infant years of widespread institutional computerized record keeping. Depending on the institution, its budget, and commitment to archival preservation, records were stored in warehouses, converted to micro-format, or converted to computer format. Retrieval was as easy as looking up a University’s website, or finding a yearbook on the shelf in the library, or as challenging as discovering that the records were part of the “few boxes which were destroyed before they were filmed.”

 I’ve left out more than I included. Omit people, omit events, omit places. My tale is autobiographical, but not all-inclusive. I no longer know how accurate it is, I had to stop worrying about corroboration, I got bogged down in checking facts. Facts got in the way of telling the story. So, like any novelist, I created scenes, invented dialogue, invoked mood through word choice. Anything to tell my story.